More Mober For Linn Sondek LP12

Mober sub-platter for Linn LP12 tur table, though Cirkus compatible, I much prefer the sound when mated to it's intended partner, the Mober bearing.

In my last story about the Mober sub platter, as started with my desire for the latest Linn Karousel bearing upgrade, but the prohibitive pricing of Linn lead me to looking else where. Along came the Mober items purchased from Edmund Chan who makes these Mober products & ships out of Hong Kong. 

Doing the Mober bearing upgrade, much like the Karuosel, requires the Vahalla or Hercules power supply board to be moved out of the turn table, in to a separate external box. That means my Hercules II Gold power supply board will need a box to be housed in. Fear not, Mober has a solution in the form of a Mose kit!

In the process of reading up on the Karousel vs Mober bearing, it would seem to me that Edmund had started putting the Mober bearing in to the market 2 years ahead of Linn! However, the emergence of Karuosel has made Mober to introduce an improved version with collar mount option, compared to the 3 point mount of the previous design, as in Linn's Cirkus bearing. Competition does indeed spark innovation in this case!

Now let us go through the build pictorial:

Mober(left) bearing vs Linn Cirkus(right). Notice how much bigger the Mober bearing is at the bottom? The Mober bearing also offers collar mount, which I feel in much better than 3 point mounting, as the stress points are even out with collar mount.

The bridge comparison, left is the Mober supplied unit which came as part of the bearing package. Compared to the Linn supplied unit, notice the bearing thru hole in the center, which is much bigger diameter with the Mober unit. Also note the heavier steel gauge used, and that improved wire hold down design, which is far more rigid compared to Linn's fragile looking P-clip, not shown here.   

On the back is similar story, the Mober parts exudes quality build that Linn can only dream about!

The Mose casing to house my Hercules II Gold power supply board. This 2U design casing is aluminum extruded and finished in satin black for an overall high quality look & feel.

The back panel of the Mose box, a multi pin socket provides easy & removable wiring option from the turn table.

Even the IEC socket provided with the Mose is a gold plated audiophile grade item, Mober has put in much thought to his products!

Inside the Mose box is an added AC board for LED indicator at face plate, and rerouting all Hercules II Gold cabling requirements to the multi pin socket.

The Mose box with the Hercules II Gold power supply board fitted.

The completed Mose box, with a blue indicator at front face plate, when powered up.

Fitting of Mober bearing commence! The Mober bearing is first collar mounted on to the Linn Kore sub-chassis. This is followed by the motor & 33 & 45 rpm switch on the top plate.

M for Mober!

The wire hold down clamp as seen here in white is much easier to work with, compared to Linn's P-clip design. Just lift the clamp high enough to slip the cables through, then tighten that hex key.

The finished project, with Mober's L shaped power supply board to accommodate the much bigger bearing. the multi pin cable from Mose box shown earlier is attached to this L-shaped PS board. Also seen here with tone arm cable & multi pin cable being clamped down respectively. 

An older picture for comparison, with Linn's Vahalla board in place with Circkus bearing. The Hercules II Gold board is basically a 2 speed version of the Vahalla!

And lastly the whole turn table assembly sits on the Linn Trampolin II

The finished project, with the newly Oak finished plinth. This project is like a total rebuild, and since I am at it, I also swapped the Koetsu Black cartridge to serve on the Linn LP12 turn table. 

The Linn LP12(top tier) with the Mose kit & Marantz PH-1 phono stage below deck, sitting on my Spyder rack.

The sound of the finished project is excellent from the first needle drop! The initial sound was fast and exciting, with little to no back ground noise. LP surface noise is largely reduced as well. The bass is now truly powerful and tight! The Linn finally has the bass power to rival my Kuzma turn table. No more  Linn's flabby, "mong cha-cha" bass of the old. The Mober bearing package, with it's sub platter really brings the Linn LP12 detail retrieval ability & clarity to a whole new level. The good part is Linn's much fabled mid-bass is now clean, and doesn't intrude and cloud the male vocals anymore. Treble is much extended, airy and clear like a breath of fresh air! The noise level after the Mober bearing & Mose kit installed is near zero or un-audible now. After a few days, as the 3 springs that suspends the Linn settles down, the treble begins to soften a touch, and some semblance of the Linn LP12 sound character re-emerges, but just enough to remind you that this is still a Linn LP 12 after all.

I feel the Mober kits offer very high value for money in each & every way one looks at it. The Mober kits are well made, with good materials, high quality finishing and much design details that only someone with an intimate knowledge of the Linn LP12 can think of. Best of all, the Mober kits are much, much more affordable than the Scotland made stuff, yet suffers no sound penalty or build quality. I think the Mober kits may somewhat sound a little different if compared to using all Linn parts catalog, but on the whole, Edmund Chan is a person who understands the Linn's engineering philosophy well, and doesn't stray too far from where the apple tree is. I now have much respect and high regards for the Mober kits. If you have a Linn LP12 turn table at whatever vintage, do give the Mober kits a go!

Given today's Linn aftermarket diversity, and Linn's endless catalog of up grade parts, I can tell you there no 2 Linn LP12 in the world that is exactly same anymore, after leaving the showroom! A celebration of diversity I guess.....

Mighty Mober For My Linn Sondek LP12, Mober SSP 12 Sub Platter

Julien, my friendly Linn LP12 kaki, who is also my hifi COP, a.k.a. Chief Of Poison, introduced me to the world of Mober, an after market parts vendor for the Linn LP12. In fact, Mober's parts catalog is so complete, that you can actually choose to build a whole LP12 out of Mober parts list! However be warned that if you do that, I suspect the actual end product, an LP12 look a like may not sound much a like the Linn version either.........

Also when reading in to Mober's story, I found that Edmund Chan, the Mober man is also the man behind Hercules PS by Stamford Audio, which I use to repleced the Linn Vahalla PS and still loved till date. That already gave me a healthy dose of confidence on Mober's stuff. At one point, Mober was so controversial in the Linn forums, because there were just as many pro Mober fans vs Linn purist, which resulted in a war on almost every topic posted. It got so bad that Linn decided to shut down the forum totally. Edmund and his henchmen were thrown out and denied membership, forever! Yeah, I know how up tight those Linn purist can be!

As I discussed with Julien, my buddy(who denies his poisoning abilities) about the Linn Karousel bearing option, that everyone is hot over heels about, but the high cost factor remained in my doubt and so in one brilliant stroke, Julien suggested I look in to the Mober alternative. Mober's store is on Ebay and he ships out of Hong Kong. After going thru Mober's Ebay store, I ended up not only with Mober's bearing, but also an Mober SSP12(which is Mober's sub plater) and also Mose+ out board casing kit for my Hercules II Gold PS board. You see, before Linn's Karousel, Mober was already selling his bearing of a similar design. And like the Karousel, Mober's bearing mount is much bigger, so much of the original LP12 inner pieces will either have to be changed or modified! The inner brace bar which holds the Cirkus bearing will need to have the bearing fitting hole enlarged, but Mober sent me a replacement to fit with his bearing instead. The Hercules II Gold PS board won't fit either, so it will be moved outboard with the Mose+ casing kit! 

Now you can see, why I was so hesitant in considering the Karousel bearing! With so much changes, the cost was just adding up big time, if I had stuck to the Linn parts bin! With Mober's more reasonable pricing, that move was a whole lot more palatable, financially. Actually, if you scour the www carefully by searching for Linn LP12 parts, you'll find much after market bit's & pieces for your Linn, some very well designed, others down right wacky & possibly rather tweaky by looks. I am just saying this, that in the Linn LP12 universe, there exist a whole lot of other options other than the original. 

Mober box arrived via FedEx

Inside the Mober box

I ordered all the stuff as mentioned above, made my payment and in about 10 days or so, the Mober box arrived by FedEx. As you can see, the box is very well packed. The first item I can easily play with is the Mober SSP12 sub platter, which does not require me to disassemble the turn table just yet. All the other parts will have to wait until the current MCO to finish, when we come out of the lockdown, as I would like to refinish my black ash plinth too, while at it. So will have to wait until my buddy's furniture workshop re-opens for business.

Mober recommends that when using his bearing, to pair with the SSP12 sub platter for best results, however, the Linn Cirkus LP12 sub platter can still be used. Since the SSP12 sub platter is compatible with the existing Cirkus bearing, it will be an easy swap in. 

The difference the Mober SSP12 and the Cirkus sub platter is obvious. Mober's have a pale gold coating in the center of the top spindle. Where it's not so obvious is where the biggest difference lies, at the tip of the bearing shaft! Linn's patented bearing shaft tip is rounded off versus Mober's which is bearing fused, much like those old Thorens sub platter design from the late 50's and early 60's. Otherwise, nearly all other design aspects of both the sub platter looks identical, save for that matt aluminum finishing on the Linn, and shiny surface of the Mober. So how does that Mober sub platter sound comparatively to the Linn?

From left: Linn sub platter, then the shinny Mober sub platter on the right 

Linn sub platter, look at the rounded tip of the bearing shaft 

Mober SSP12, with the bearing fused at the tip as the focused point of the bearing shaft

The swap over was relatively easy, I pulled the Linn sub platter out from the turn table, wipe clean the shaft from the bearing oil with a piece of tissue, then re-lube the bearing and proceed to drop in the Mober sub platter. Allow some time, about 10-15 minutes to let the bearing shaft sink in by gravity, best not to use force. Once the sub platter sits in nicely, time to fit the outer platter on, and record matt, now your're ready to spin LPs!

From the very first moment the LP started spinning again, I heard a distinct, sharp high mid frequency range poking out of the overall frequency spectrum. While this makes vocals pop out and stabilizes imaging better, I much preferred Linn's overall top to bottom frequency coherence and evenness. I also note that the Mober sub platter is subjectively quieter in the musical background too. Otherwise, all other sound quality character remains largely un-changed. The bass is still solidly filled up and gutsy, the mid range comes with the peak as mentioned, and treble remains airy & refined. 

Over a few weeks, that mid range peak started to be reduced to almost un-detectable, except with certain LPs or songs, I could still hear it. That's the problem with audio, once you've heard it, it's very difficult to unhear it. From time to time or song to song that peak high mid just sticks out enough to remind you about the Mober! I actually find this type of sonic character very much like sitting one's hifi equipment on 3 pieces of downward pointer footings, but the Mober being a whole lot more discreet. One of the main reasons I never use those tipsy downward pointing footers on my hifi equipment. 

I am hoping that once I pair this sub platter to the Mober bearing, this anomaly would disappear totally for a perfect & coherent match. I also suspect that with the neutrality of the Benx Micro LP cartridge also pushed the Mober towards this slight peak in the high mids, and I suspect my other cartridge the warmer sounding Koetsu Black which is more sympathetic, may be a better match with the Mober items.  Let's see......

The Linn sub platter just before removal

The well sit in Mober SSP12 after 15 minutes, fits nicely too

With that being said, I believe that Mober sub platter & bearing kit is best used as a set. The Mober SSP12 when used with an existing Cirkus based Linn LP12 turntable, the compatibility may rest on a few other items too, such as cartridge, cable & turn table set up. That makes this so called up grade a small gamble, and YMMV is all I can tell you at this point. Well, at least till I get all the other Mober items in to my Linn Sondek LP12. Not sure when that is possible in the current pandemic & lockdown situation........................... 

My Linn Sondek LP12 is back in action again. For Linn purist, in which this photo I shared on Linn FB group, the LP clamp used here is a crime punishable by crucifixion! For me, as long as it's floating my boat, who cares?